If you want to understand the reason for the heightened contestations at the precipice of internecine strife in political parties' nomination and list processes for 3 August 2016 local government elections, pick up this book: Patronage Politics Divides Us. It gives insight into what is at the core of interand intra-party rivalry as the elections are looming-patronage. The book is one of the research outputs of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA)-a knowledge-based South African organisation that assumed a position in the Top Ten of the Best New Think Tanks in the world in 2013. At that time, MISTRA was less than five years old. Strategic thinking and generating cutting edge knowledge for societal advances underpin the edifice of its foundational disposition. Those with a sense of curiosity will naturally be spurred by this context, and will immediately lay their hands on the book and read it. Its purpose is